Around Us

Published 11:44 am, Wednesday, February 29, 2012

CANYON — West Texas A&M University’s alumni group is seeking $150,000 in donations to build a new habitat for Thunder X, the school’s 3-year-old American bison mascot.

The university’s Alumni Association board of directors wants to build a 2,400-square-foot metal building, pens and a parking lot on a 15-acre plot of land just east of campus, said Shawn Burns, WT’s police chief and adviser to the Herdsmen, a 16-member student group that cares for Thunder X.

Burns hopes to have the new habitat ready by homecoming in October.

The alumni group also is seeking another roughly $400,000 to create a fund to pay the Herdsmen’s foreman and assistant foreman, the positions specifically tasked with caring for Thunder X, Burns said.

Burns said other additions at the new habitat will include two holding pens and one round pen. He said Thunder X will be in the pens and pasture area, while the 2,400-square-foot facility will feature a Herdsmen meeting room and storage space.

Coone, 35, was arrested last Thursday afternoon on charges she and Joshua Ranard Glover, 25, delivered Ecstasy to an undercover officer over several months.

District spokeswoman Holly Shelton said the district will review the applications it has on file to find a full-time replacement. The school will fill the position in the meantime with a substitute teacher, she said.

Texas Education Agency officials also have opened a case to investigate Coone, spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said. The State Board for Educator Certification could suspend or revoke her certificate if she was found guilty of the felony offense of distributing a controlled substance, Culbertson said.

Coone’s bail was set at $15,000, jail officials said. She posted bail and was released Saturday.

Coone is the second Amarillo ISD teacher to be arrested in less than three months. In December, authorities charged Sanborn Elementary School teacher Julie Ann Moore, 34, with sexually assaulting a teenage boy. She resigned from her job later that month. — Amarillo Globe-News

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LUBBOCK — Harrigan’s was evacuated Tuesday evening after a fire started in a kitchen vent hood, officials said.

Lubbock Fire Department Deputy Fire Marshal Robert Loveless said the fire was limited to underneath the vent hood.

The restaurant, located in the Memphis Place Mall at 50th Street and Memphis Avenue, should be closed for a few days, he said.

There is smoke damage throughout the restaurant, and the kitchen needs to be cleaned. The smoke did not trigger the fire sprinkler, so structurally, there is no damage, Loveless added. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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LUBBOCK — A Lubbock County grand jury on Tuesday indicted on capital murder charges two men accused of slaying a pizza parlor employee during a robbery late last year.

Sesilio Lopez, 28, and Brian Suniga, 32, initially were charged with murder by the same grand jury for the death of David Rowser, who worked at One Guy From Italy Pizza, 4320 50th St.

Because the men allegedly were robbing the restaurant when Rowser was murdered, prosecutors had the option of presenting a capital murder charge to the grand jury.

Rowser, 26, was shot and killed after two men with handguns unsuccessfully demanded money from the restaurant’s cash register shortly after the restaurant closed, according to police.

Jonathan Rowser, the victim’s brother who was also an employee at the restaurant, told police the men stuck guns in his face and demanded the money from the register. When Jonathan refused, the men grabbed the tip jar from the counter and began to leave.

At that point, David came out of a room near the bathroom and one of the men shot him in the chest, according to a police report. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal